AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A Hajj and pilgrimage official said Iran is waiting for Saudi Arabia’s clearance for Iranian flights to start sending Umrah pilgrims to the Arab country.
Seyed Abbas Hosseini said the plane ticket prices should also be determined by the Civil Aviation Organization before the flights start.
The head of the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization also said that using the Taef international airport to take Iranian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia is on the agenda of the organization.
In April this year, the first batch of pilgrims left Tehran and Mashhad for the holy city of Medina to mark the resumption of Iranians’ Umrah pilgrimage after a nine-year hiatus.
Umrah differs from Hajj in that the latter is a lengthier visit which is done once a year and performed once in a lifetime by able-bodied Muslims who can afford it.
Iran stopped sending Umrah pilgrims to Saudi Arabia after two Iranian teenage boys were harassed in an airport in the Saudi city of Jeddah in March 2015.
That came nearly a year before the two countries cut their diplomatic relations.
Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic ties in March 2023 through a China-mediated agreement, marking a significant development after severing relations in 2016.
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